Aravalli Craton

SEM –I (M.Sc.)
Mable M. Toppo
Asst. Prof.
Dept. of Geology
St. Xavier’s College, Ranchi
 Introduction
• Occupies an area of over 1 lakh sq.km. covering entire
Rajasthan, parts of Gujrat, M.P and fringes of Delhi and
Haryana.
• Consist of Mewar craton in east and Marwar craton in
west, separated by Phulad lineament which marks the
western boundary of Delhi Fold belt.
• Bounded to east by Great Boundary Fault and vindhyan
basin which separates it from Bundelkhand craton, to
the west by sands of Thar desert, to the north by Indo-
Gangetic alluvium and to the south by Son-Narmada-
Tapi lineament.
• Unique in the sense , does not contain typical
greenstone belts that are prominantly exposed in
Dharwar craton.
 Cont…
• Predominantly composed of quartzites , marbles,
pellites, greywackes and volcanics that are exposed in
well known Aravalli-Delhi orogen.
• Orogen consist of two prominent fold belts of Aravalli
and Delhi unconformably lying over archean basement
of gneiss known as Banded Gneissic Complex(BGC).
• Distinguished by largest felsic volcanic province of
India,3rd in the world(Malani Igneous Suite)
• Home of the only Pb-Zn-Cu deposit of India (Agucha-
Zawar), besides containg stromatolytic phosphorites
and decorative marbles (Makrana).
 Stratigraphy
• Aravalli Craton is divided into the following
tectonostratigraphic elements.
– Archean Mewar Gneiss with ancient supracrustal
Enclaves
– Bhilwara Supergroup (Hindoli group,Mangalwar
complex, sandmata complex).
– Mineralised supracrustal belts(Rajpura dariba, Pur-
Banera etc.)
– Paleoproterojoic Aravalli Fold Belt
– Mesoproterojoic Delhi Fold belt
– Neoproterojoic basins(Sirohi,Punagarh)
– Neoproterojoic Malani Igneous suite
– Neoproterojoic Marwar Basin.
• A number of major lineament dissect the craton
into units that incorporate a combination of
tectono-stratigraphy units enumerated above.
These are
– Great Boundary Fault
– Banas lineament separating Hindoli belt from
Mangalwar complex
– Dilwara Lineament- sheared contact between
Mangalwar and sandmata complex
– Kaliguman Linament separating Sandmata complex from
Delhi Fold Belt
– Phulad Lineament – boundary between Mewar and
Marwar Cratons.
 Banded Gneissic Complex
• Heron(1953) called all the grey gneisses,
migmatites and granitoids of Mewar region as
BGC.
• 3 principal component of Mewar Gneiss are
– Basement TTG gneisses least affected by later
deformation and metamorphism
– Basement Granitoids intruding the TTG gneisses
– Basement Granitoids occuring as inliers within.
 Petrogenesis of BGC
• The archean granites and gneisses of craton
seem to have evolved in two stages
• 1. Generation of amphibolite from peridotitic
mantle
• 2. Partial melting of amphibolites to produce
TTG gneisses and younger granitoids. K-rich
granitoids are probably derieved from partial
melting of gneisses followed by fractionation
 Bhilwara supergroup
• BGC of Heron(1935) having granites and granitoids were considered as
basement of Aravalli-Delhi Orogen, later after extensive studies by
GSI(Gupta at al, 1980) led to renaming of BGC as Bhilwara Supergroup.
• The Bhilwara Supengroup extend in a crescent shape outcrop over a
distance of over 400 km from Pipalkhunt in the south to Delhi in the
northeast and beyond over a width of a few km in the south to 130 km
across Bhilwara. The rocks strike NW-SE in the south, N-S in the west of
Chittaurgarh and NE-SW in the Hindoli area.
• Divided into 3 tectono-stratigraphic units
– Hindoli Group
– Mangalwar Complex
– Sandmata Complex
• General lithology -metapelite and quartzite, conglomerate, metagraywacke,
marble, calc-silicates, calc-schist, calc-gneiss, mica schist, kyanite-
silimanite schist metavolcanics, feldspathised mica schist and gneisses,
migmatites, granite, granite gneiss, granodiorite, charnockite, norite,,
dolerite and ultramafics.
 Aravalli Supergroup
• Represents succession of Proterojoic times
• Rocks are mostly low grade metamorphosed sedimentary rocks
• Type area- Udaipur
• General trend- NE-SW
• Base is Mewar gneiss complex(BGC) and is overlain by Delhi
Supergroup
• Rock types include- quartzites, greywacke and carbonates,green
schist facies and intruded by pre-,syn-,and post tectonic granitoids
and mafic-ultramafic suites.
• Age- 2.5-2.0 B.Y
• Complexly folded by as many as four generations, including early
reclined, typically rootless folds, followed by later generations of
folds distorting the outcrop belts into hook shaped synclines,
anticlines and more complex shape
 Delhi Supergroup
• Overlies the Aravalli supergroup and occurs as linear
belt of about 650km long with variable width from
Gujrat to Delhi.
• Main Delhi Fold belt in the middle has roughly an
hourglass structure.
• Sediments are deposited in few locally interlinked but
isolated basins.
• Based on contrasting ages of intrusive granites ,divided
into 2 principal divisions(Sinha etal.)
– North Delhi Fold Belt(NDFB) 1600-1450Ma
– South Delhi Fold Belt(SDFB) 1100-900Ma
The line separating the two is called Bithoor-Pisangan line in
Ajmer.
• NDFB
– Ajabgarh Group: calcareous phyllites,quartzites with
volcanics.
– Alwar Group: dominantly arenaceous includes phyllite-
schists,arkosic quartzite,amphibole quartzite,marble etc.
– Railo Group: conglomerate and pebbly quartzite overlain
by basic volcanics.
SDFB
– Bhim Grp
– Rajgarh Grp
– Sendra Grp
– Barotiya Grp
– Basantgarh Grp
 Malani Igneous Suite
• Largest felsic province of 51000sq.km.
• Represents large intraplate,anorogenic felsic event.
• Volcanism occurred along parallel fractures suggesting
intra-cratonic rift setting
• Occurs to west of Aravalli mountains as tors, inselbergs
and scattered hummocks below sand cover.
• Malani magmatism divided into 3 phase
– 1st phase comprises bimodal volcanism including
rhyolites,ignimbrites and ultrapotassic rhyolites
– 2nd phase characterised by plutons and bosses of granites
– 3rd phase involved intrusion of basic and felsic dykes along
the rift margin
• Rb –Sr dating suggest age approx 750 Ma
 Marwar Supergroup
• MSG occupies large area of about 50,000sq.km in
Jodhpur-Khatu- Nagaur-Bikaner of West Rajasthan.
• Unconformably overlies the Malani Igneous Suite and
is overlain by Permo- Carboniferous Bap Beds.
• Plarformal sediments (1000km thick) contain
sandstone, siltstone shale and carbonates, gypsum and
anhydrite.
• Previously considered unfossiliferous but recent studies
suggest moderately diverse and heterogenous
Ediacaran assemblage from Jodhpur
Group(Srivastava,2012) .
 Economic deposit
• The Rampura –Agucha belt (Bhilwara) hosts Zn-Pb sulphides.
Host rock- silimanite-graphite-mica schist and amphiboltes.
• The Rajpura-Dariba belt contains blanket shaped and lensoid
bodies of copper,lead and zinc sulphide ores.
• Carbonate hosted Pb-Zn deposits of Zawarmala are banded
stratiform body with veins of galena.
• Low grade U mineralization in carbonates and phyllites of
Umra-Udaipur belt
• Jhamarkotra formation of Udaipur region hosts large
phosphorite deposits.
• In Khetri belt the Cu sulphides are stratabound within
garnetiferous chlorite schist and amphibolite.
• Tungstun deposits is reported from Degana,Balda and
Sewariya-Govindgarh areas.